Scone rugby league players found guilty of raping woman in 2023
Two Scone rugby league players have been found guilty of raping a woman in 2023. Hayden Topliss and Ryan Hawkshaw will be sentenced in November after the jury rejected their claims of consent.
Two rugby league players from Scone have been found guilty of raping a woman in 2023. Hayden Charles Topliss, 37, and Ryan Matthew Hawkshaw, 27, stood trial for a week in the Newcastle District Court, facing multiple counts of aggravated sexual intercourse.
The court heard that the woman repeatedly said "no" and "stop" during the assault, but the men claimed there was consent. A jury rejected this, finding the men guilty on all counts after deliberating for one day.
The offences happened in a spare bedroom at Topliss's house in Scone. The woman told jurors she had consensual sex with Hawkshaw before Topliss came in and forced her down. She said she was pulled around the bed, repositioned and had her hair pulled.
In her closing address, Crown Prosecutor Charisse Hodgeman said the woman was "unshaken and firm" when giving evidence that was "inherently believable". "Her account was a detailed one rather than a false or reconstructed account," Ms Hodgeman said.
The woman told jurors what happened in the spare bedroom that night was "torture". The jury accepted there was no consent and the woman was repeatedly raped.
Bail for the guilty pair has been revoked and they will be sentenced in November.